An early start...

Somewhere in blogland I came across this tree.  I love the color scheme. 

My tree last year was nice.... but I'm more than a little tired of the red color scheme I had going on.   I looked at Wally World and their glass ornaments are $4 for a pack of 4 big glass ball ornaments, or $15 for a bunch of small ones.  I guess they're not terribly expensive, but that would be AT LEAST $19 if I ONLY got 2 packs. Certainly not enough to fill up my 9 ft tree.  

So I decided to do a little recycling, with this: 

and lots of these from my basement:

I left the gold ones alone, but after I sprayed the light and dark red ornaments, I was quite pleased and surprised with the results.

I love that the dark red ones turned out light purple, so I only did a light coat on those.  I did 2 coats on the light red to make them very pink.  They dried really quickly too, I only waited 5 min in between coats, long enough to roll them over and make sure the whole thing was painted.  

Then there were these 2 emerald green ornaments I never liked, but I'm glad I didn't throw them away last year.

And you, Hawaiian Santa,

you're perfect just the way you are...

Total Cost: $4.34 for spray paint.

This is just the first of many ideas for my tree this year.  I'm glad I was able to get them painted before the hustle and bustle of the holidays gets in full swing.   I'll be working on a few Christmas projects before Thanksgiving, so I can actually enjoy them and be ready to bust out the decorations December 1st!

Place Mattes for Pillows?

Hello there, I am still knee deep in projects all over the house. I'm trying to get them done by the end of the week. My 3 year even came into my office and said "look at this house!" Hmmm...I wonder where he's heard that?!
I knew I needed to post so I went through my files of pictures to find something that I hadn't posted yet. I found this!

So I wanted to try to find some pillows that would match the wall paper behind the sofa but I knew that would be time consuming! As much as I love a could decor hunt I decided to look around my house and see what I alread had!

(these pics were taken at night so the color is a little off.



I found these blue table place mattes that I had bought on clearance a couple years ago with the plan of making them pillows but never did. They matched blue perfect!



Next, I took a stencil and a fabric pen and painted the design on the place matter. It was so perfect that it matches the same pattern on the wall paper perfectly too!





For the back of the pillow I wanted a color that matched the walls of the office. I had this mis-match curtain panel I bought at Target on clearance for $4, sitting in my pile of fabric waiting to be used and it worked out great!


There you go, my love of symmetry on display!

What I've been working on.....

OK,so maybe you remember me saying that once I started putting Halloween away I got a little crazy with rearranging/redecorating....here's a sneak peek at my Tea Time Table.

Also, this post was written after midnight, ignore the slap-happiness.
I'm a little obsessed with Tea Pots, and Tea cups and Tea time. I think it stems from my little obsession of pretty things and also London. Why London? I don't know. I just wished I lived there. Everyone stops once a day to enjoy tea. It's remembering that little civility that maybe we forgot and should be a part of our lives. I'm really considering bring tea time Utah, I think it would work! (haha, that's the funniest thing I heard all day!)
I must also add that my main love of London is because it's soooo.....designey.



Some of my inspiration come from one of my favorite stores, Anthropologie.





My own creations, a little arts'ey. (yes I'm adding 'ey' to everything today).
I explain the piecing together in my next post.


I'm also inspired by Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.... (again, London, tea party..) I didn't really mean to be but once I started putting together it reminded me of the Mad Hatters Tea Party.





I didn't realize how much until I noticed my creations took on a black, white, and blue theme like her outfits!





Ok, I that's all for now! But I will revel next week..Mondayish. I'll explain my "Tea Time Tower" dishes and how I even built my "Tea Time" table!

Curtains from "scratch" this time!

I totally forgot to post this on Monday! I got so busy cleaning up my Halloween and then got the urge to rearrange and redesign. So the next thing I know my house is littered with projects.

It's another curtain tutorial, I know.  But this time I actually made them by scratch and didn't alter! Can you believe it? Call the presses!




Um, yeah.  I know I need a new camera. My pictures just don't do things justice.


.


These curtains by Simply Shabby Chic, were kind of my inspiration



I bought this cute white eyelet fabric. I love it because it already had a finished embroidered scalloped edge. That edge adds a pretty detail and makes it a little bit easier!



It was very sheer, more sheer then I wanted. So I lined it with white fabric.


 I did it in three pieces for the "roman shade" look.


Here is another close up of the already finished bottom. Sew pretty (he he!) I didn't line this because I wanted it to be more sheer.




To me, the worse part of making your own roman shades, or basically any curtain from "scratch" is making sure it's perfectly square and fits into the window. When you alter curtains you don't have to really worry about that because the manufacturer already has! So I used a T-square and meter stick.


I made a rod pocket.


I gathered it about 12" up from the bottom to expose the already scalloped edge that I love and stitched it to create the balloon shade look.


I added ribbon for some detail just because I love ribbon!
It's just kind of a raw shabby look!

Featured on Studio 5!

Today some of my 'stuff' was featured on Studio 5 here in Utah. Check it out!
If you want. there-> Happy Home

Window Dressing

What can I say, I love to cut things apart, make them better and sew them back together! Here is how I did it in my great room.





They started out like this. Can you see them in the background? Just a nice woven grayish black.  I always had this plan in mind but was waiting until I found the right fabric.


I took the curtains I already had and folded them in half and cut down the middle. BUT stopped before I cut the slot (is slot the word? well I'm sticking with it) that the curtain rod goes through.


As you can see they were just white on one side. Actually, they were lined with a solar reflective material, bonus!




I finally found this gorgeous fabric, after months of searching, at one of the best consignment stores EVER in St. George. There was just enough on the bolt to do both windows! It's great quality too and I got it for a steal!


Next, I cut it to fit the "new" panels I had just created. I made sure the pattern looked the same on all the panels so they'd match and have the store bought look.


Then I folded over and sewed. So I've now made them doubled sided.


I had these cute knobs that I drilled into the wall at the bottom.


I sewed (is that a word? geez I'm kind of dumb tonight) ribbon on the inside of both panels and they latch around the knob to keep open.


Here they are!


They are my new favorite! (shh I'm kind of over Halloween and ready to have my fireplace back so I can decorate it with the new curtains)

Chocolate Time!

I'm loving all the chocolate treats this holiday season! Here's 2 of my fave I'm doing this weekend.



This is from Country Living but I saw them make it on Studio 5 today and was like "YES I can do this!" It sounded so delicious, it's German chocolate cake mix, pumpkin and dark chocolate....I could go on but Click here to find out how.


This is also so adorable and pretty simple. AND it has Twinkies dipped in Chocolate, say what!!?
It's from the cute blog inbetweenlaundry.blogspot.com